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4:02 p.m. So there you have it folks, another bloody day for the market in the books. At the close--if my data is updating quickly enough--the S&P 500 dropped 1.3% to 2,677.67, while the Dow tumbled 420.22 points, or 1.7%, to 24,608.98, and the Nasdaq is off 1.3% at 7,180.56. Ouch.

The ostensible reason for the drop was President Donald Trump's announcement that he would place tariffs on steel and aluminum. No one really seemed to take the threat seriously, and even this morning it was unclear whether President Donald Trump would actually hit imported steel with a 25% tariff, and aluminum with a 10% hit. But he did.

And while that may help a small number of U.S. companies--U.S. Steel (X), AK Steel (AKS), and Alcoa (AA) among them--it hurts plenty more. Take a look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the close today for a small helping of companies that will be hurt by higher prices on steel and aluminum. Boeing (BA) dropped 3.5% to 3.5% to $349.69; United Technologies (UTX), which soared yesterday after Bill Ackman announced a position in the stock, fell 3.3% to $130.30; and Caterpillar (CAT) declined 2.9% to $150.23.

The takeaway: Tariffs are trouble.

2:07 p.m. It's Choose Your Own Adventure time for the market, where the selloff has continued to gather steam. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has tumbled 496.72 points, or 2%, to 24,532.48, while the has dropped 1.7% to 2,668.48. The Nasdaq Composite has slumped 1.9% to 7137.32.

If you're looking for a reason, the one that seems to be most cited is the tariffs that President Donald Trump announced on steel and aluminum. "The selling picked up speed immediately after the President announced he was imposing tariffs on imported steel causing participants to fear that a broad based trade war may develop and one that would negatively impact multiple products and many different industries," Robert Pavlik, chief investment officer of SlateStone Wealth wrote in an email. And remember, it was the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act that was widely blamed for making the Great Depression the Great Depression.

But it's not like this is the first day of selling. The market sold off on Tuesday because Fed Chief Jerome Powell hinted at more rate hikes than the market had been pricing in, and sold off again yesterday for no apparent reason. So let's just face it. You can try to find a reason for the market's drop, but that's less important than recognizing what is happening.

The market just wants to go down.

11:01 a.m. Jerome Powell's first testimony to Congress as Fed chair on Tuesday was widely blamed for the Dow Jones Industrial Average's nearly 300 point selloff that today. Can he undo the damage? At first it seemed like he might, as all the major indexes jumped as when he first spoke earlier this morning.

It was short lived. The S&P 500 has dipped 1.2 point or 0.04%, to 2712.63 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has advanced 12.31 points, or 0.1%, to 25,041.51. The Nasdaq Composite has dropped 0.3% to 7251.19.

So what did Powell say? It appears that his comments on the tightening job market and the potential impact on inflation did the trick. While many have worried that a tight job market would lead to higher wages and ultimately runaway inflation, Powell doesn't see that happening. This is how my colleague Randall Forsyth summed it up:

Powell also said he saw room for the labor market to continue strengthening without igniting inflation. This seemed a less hawkish stance than he took in his Tuesday testimony to the House, in which he stoked fears of the Fed raising rates four times in 2018, rather than the three expected increases, given what he described as strong economic data in recent months.

So can we agree that this is a different market now than it was for much of the past two years? As Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid notes this morning, the S&P 500 moved 1% or more in either direction 12 times in February compared to just 12 from the beginning of January 2017 through the end of January 2018. "Having sat through a prolonged period of incredibly low volatility across virtually all asset classes for the best part of two years, February will be best remembered for when volatility finally returned to markets," Reid writes.

But the U.S. actually outperformed other markets last month—a scary thought isn't it?— and we're seeing a bit of a negative feedback loop developing. Weakness in U.S. stocks yesterday has caused global stocks to slump-—the Stoxx Europe 50 has dropped 0.8% has, while the Nikkei 225 is off 1.6%—which in turn is leading to weakness in U.S. stocks.

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